{"id":567,"date":"2019-08-29T13:30:06","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T13:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/2019\/08\/29\/new-evidence-that-diana-nyad-fabricated-her-abuse-story\/"},"modified":"2024-03-18T21:40:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T21:40:56","slug":"new-evidence-that-diana-nyad-fabricated-her-abuse-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/new-evidence-that-diana-nyad-fabricated-her-abuse-story\/","title":{"rendered":"New Evidence that Diana Nyad Fabricated Her Abuse Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just over a year ago, the New York Times<\/em> issued a correction to an op-ed<\/a> in which Diana Nyad accuses her high school swim coach, Jack Nelson, of sexual abuse. The correction reads:<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described an event associated with the initial assault on the author. It was a swim meet, not the state swimming championships.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The change gave the illusion that The Times<\/em> had cleaned up Nyad\u2019s mess. \u201cWe published a thorough correction,\u201d editor Alicia Wittmeyer told journalist Irv Muchnick<\/a>, \u201cand don\u2019t plan to comment beyond it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the correction was far from thorough, leaving most of Nyad\u2019s fabrications intact.
\n<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> may not care\u2014\u201cMy Life After Sexual Assault\u201d is, after all, an opinion piece. But when Nyad provides all the lurid details of that first episode of alleged abuse, she presents the event as fact, not opinion. The Times<\/em>, then, has a responsibility to confirm that Nyad is telling the truth, especially when her ostensible facts involve unsubstantiated allegations against a real person.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my real talent \u2014 more than being an athlete \u2014 is being a master storyteller. (\u201cDiana Nyad: Find a Way<\/a>,\u201d via 24life.com)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And it turns out that looking into Nyad\u2019s facts is not all that difficult. She sees herself as a storyteller par excellence, so she piles on those lurid details in the hopes of giving her stories an aura of truth. Those details simplify the job of checking Nyad\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Laura Nyro\u2014December 4, 1970 \/ January 29, 1971<\/h5>\n

I was 21 when I told someone the whole horrid saga for the first time. I took a weekend trip to Michigan to celebrate the birthday of my best friend from high school\u2026 (op-ed<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nyad included more details in her 2015 memoir, Find a Way<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u2026I flew to Detroit to go to a Laura Nyro concert with my old high school swimming buddy Suzanne\u2026 (p. 56).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\u00b0))\u0302)\u0316)><\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0><((\u0317(\u0302(\u00b0><\/p>\n

\"Laura<\/a>Laura Nyro<\/a> was struggling, barely able to sing above a whisper. \u201cDoes anybody have a cough drop?\u201d she asked. An audience member handed one up to the stage, and Nyro placed it atop the piano for later. She fought on but, after thirty-six minutes, ended the concert, done in by a bad case of laryngitis.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t matter to the thousands of fans packed into the University of Detroit\u2019s Memorial Building (present-day Calihan Hall). They didn\u2019t care whether Nyro sang or whispered \u201cEli\u2019s Comin\u2019.<\/a>\u201d She was there, authentic and vulnerable. She was there, and that was everything. \u201cSome of the softer notes,\u201d wrote one reviewer<\/a>, \u201cwere lost in a squeaky whisper but the audience was more than satisfied with her effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience may have been satisfied, but Nyro wasn\u2019t. So she returned two months later to give the university another show entirely at her expense<\/a>. She paid for the venue, covering all production costs, charging nothing for tickets. On Friday, January 29, 1971, 7500 fans battled a blizzard<\/a> to fill the Memorial Building and cheer the singer-poet.<\/p>\n

Diana might have been one of those fans. If a 21-year-old Nyad heard Laura Nyro in Detroit, it had to be either at that show or the abbreviated one in December. Neither date was close to Suzanne\u2019s May birthday, but Nyro played no other shows in Detroit while Nyad was that age.<\/p>\n

The following year, Nyro played Detroit in February<\/a>. By then, though, Nyad had turned 22 and was in Europe. She had flown to England by the beginning of September, then traveled on to Dijon, France, for a six-month study abroad program<\/a>.\u00a0 (Trouble keeping track of the dates? Don\u2019t worry\u2014I\u2019ve included a timeline below. )<\/p>\n

But before she set off for Europe, Nyad had some races to swim. A letter she wrote after one of those races would show that, unless Diana Nyad is a psychopath\u2014and even I hesitate to go that far\u2014she lied about most if not all of her abuse story.<\/p>\n

><((\u0317(\u0302(\u00b0> \u00a0 \u00a0<\u00b0))\u0302)\u0316)><<\/p>\n

La Tuque\u2014July 24-25, 1971<\/h5>\n

Le 24 heures de la Tuque<\/a>, <\/i>better known simply as La Tuque, would be the most grueling swim Diana had ever done. A 24-hour race involving teams of two swimmers each, the members of each pair would trade off from 3 pm on Saturday until 3 pm on Sunday, completing circuit after circuit of Lac Saint-Louis<\/em>, a small, egg-shaped body of water in La Tuque, Quebec.<\/p>\n

The first 24-hour competition took place in 1965. It continued yearly until 1981, though not always with the same format. By that time, however, interest had waned, and the race was no longer profitable, so le 24 heures<\/em> called it a day.<\/p>\n

But the 1971 version<\/a> was a howling success. Tens of thousands of spectators lined the shores of the tiny lake, cheering all the athletes but paying particular attention to a young American, the only woman in the race. Not only could 21-year-old Diana Nyad hold her own against the men, but she had teamed up with Gaston Par\u00e9 of Shawinigan, Quebec, thereby endearing herself all the more to the French Canadians.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nyad and Par\u00e9 didn\u2019t win\u2014they finished third\u2014but that didn\u2019t matter to their fans. A local reporter gushed<\/a> that Diana and Gaston had \u201cprouv\u00e9 de fa\u00e7on d\u00e9finitive maintenant qu\u2019ils appartiennent \u00e0 la cat\u00e9gorie des plus grands nageurs au monde\u201d<\/em>\u2014\u201cfinally proved that they belong to the category of the greatest swimmers in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a banquet after the race, Mrs. Andr\u00e9 Brassard, the wife of the president of the competition, presented a radiant Nyad with two dozen flowers: twenty-two chrysanthemums in anticipation of her 22nd birthday, and two roses\u2014making it twenty-four for the 24-heures de La Tuque<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
English translation of the caption\u2019s last sentence: \u201cPresident Andr\u00e9 Brassard seems very pleased with the discovery of this new star.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few days after Nyad\u2019s La Tuque triumph\u2014on or about July 29, 1971, and less than a month before she turned 22\u2014the young athlete composed a note to her former coach, Jack Nelson:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in four marathon swims now, and after each one I\u2019ve heard the winner say he\u2019d never do it again. I said the same thing, and now, four days later, I\u2019m planning to enter another very soon. These swims have a deep-felt effect on me. I need to share them with someone who is capable of understanding. <\/strong>(Quoted in \u201cShe Takes a Long Swim Off a Short Pier<\/a>,\u201d Sports Illustrated<\/em>, 6 Dec 1971)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\u00b0))\u0302)\u0316)><\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0><((\u0317(\u0302(\u00b0><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the problem: If Nyad were 21 when she celebrated with Suzanne, she had to tell her friend about the alleged abuse before La Tuque. But Nyad wrote the note to Nelson shortly after<\/em> La Tuque and well after she would have unburdened herself to her pal.<\/p>\n

Could Nyad have been wrong about the timing? Like most of Nyad\u2019s stories, her abuse tale changes from telling to telling<\/a>, but one aspect remains nearly fixed: her age when she first told Suzanne about the alleged assaults. With only two exceptions I know of, Nyad is always 21 years old, and the year is 1971, when she travels to Michigan \u201cand every heinous detail, every recounted word, came spewing forth.\u201d Two examples:<\/p>\n

\n